The Ivory Duet
by Fenrisknight
Summary: A short Vignette looking at the moment of the Piano Duet between Victor and Emily. VictorxEmily pairing. Highly romanticized. Please R


Misc Disclaimer: I don't profit from any of this, it's just a humble little fanfiction of no consequence, please don't sue, and please don't take any of the work…it's not mine and the characters herein aren't my property anyway. Without further ado:

**An Ivory Duet**

Victor walked for hours, down the twisted and crooked streets. Gradually he came to understand there was a semblance of odd order to the layout; gradually he learned the paths which would take him to the Elder's tower, and to the Ball and Socket. He dreaded going in there, or perhaps not precisely dreaded, but to enter would mean he would have to explain, explain why he was rude and uncouth, even for a living being in the land of the dead, where everything was just fun and games seemingly. Finally when he thought he could stand no longer the feeling of his own self-loathing, he pushed himself through the doors before he could think otherwise.

Emily sat alone at the keys. Her fingers pounded out a melody relentlessly on the aged ivory, the clack of bone almost a jarring sound. Victor almost winced in spite of himself; her anger spilled its way through the music, until it was sharp enough to slap him across the face. She played with one hand only, the other hand sat in her lap, idly fiddling with the worn lace of her gown.

Scraps nudged Victor's right leg, snapping him out of his concentrated thoughts. In the skeleton dog's jaws was clutched Emily's bouquet of flowers. With a deliberate action, the dog lay the bouquet out at the top of the steps, and emitted a mourning whine, barely audible over the piano. Sighing, Victor bent down, and scooped them up, clutching the bouquet close. He was surprised to find that even dried and wilted as they were the flowers had some scent to them still.

"I…" Victor hesitated, he could almost feel a stony glare cast against him through the keys. Again he started, "I think you…dropped this." She didn't move, didn't stop playing. He could've been talking to himself as he stood there, presenting a dead bouquet to her. With a grimace for his own social ineptitude, Victor set the bouquet softly atop the piano. Turning away, he took a step to leave, to flee this sad and angry atmosphere he'd created. But his heart felt heavy in his chest, it wouldn't do to just walk away, _I'm married to her. _It was hard to deny now, a thought that ate away at him…it had been easier before to regard it as a mistake, some foul confusion or trick being played at his expense. But the more and more he learned, the more and more he was around her, he knew her to have taken it seriously indeed.

He was going to have to work at this. "I'm sorry." Was he sorry? It was a response driven out of clichéd statements. But Victor pressed on, "I'm sorry I lied to you about wanting to see my parents." Victor paused again, he was sorry in a lot of ways for that. He would never have told a lie to anyone 'upstairs' it was completely against his nature, why had it happened so easily down here? He was the one in the wrong, it became very clear, and his apology became more heartfelt. If only there was a way to explain that. "It's just this whole day hasn't gone quite…well." This wasn't working. Victor could feel it clearly, she just didn't care what he had to say. With a heartfelt sigh for his predicament at getting Emily to listen to him, Victor collapsed onto the bench, his back slightly to her. "…well according to plan."

Emily paused in her melody, her hand taking a moment to rest. Victor was not so imperceptive as to not notice her still wearing his ring as well. Setting his fingers to the keys, he emulated the tune she just played, speeding it up slightly as he got a feel for it. With alacrity, Emily pulled her fingers back off the keys, and her eyes darted to his hand playing the tune. With an embarrassed look, Victor glanced over his shoulder at her, but she wasn't watching his face, only glaring at his errant digits. The glare stopped his playing, and reluctantly he pulled his fingers up. Seemingly satisfied, Emily continued to play, ending on a somber chord.

Victor put both hands on the piano, it was now or never. But his fingers betrayed him, instead of whirling out a lively tune to contrast hers; he simply played a similar strain from the same composer, both hands laden with the questions on his mind. He couldn't play more than three bars of the same music before stopping again.

_She's dead; I can't be married to a dead woman. There's a perfectly fine live one waiting for me up there!_

But that was wrong, and Victor knew it. Stopping slowly, he found his thoughts darkening on the prospect of Victoria. They'd barely met, in fact if one was to be perfectly honest, he'd probably spent more time with Emily entirely than Victoria. Emily was working incredibly hard to impress him and make him feel at home as well, Victoria had really done none of that in the short hours he'd known her.

Taking advantage of Victor's lapse in concentration, Emily put both hands on the keyboard, determined to make her sorrow win out. With emotion too heavy to name, Emily played a soft closure to her song, ending in a wrenching chord that trailed off in the silence between them. For a moment, under Victor's eyes he could've sworn he saw her eyes beginning to mist up, _is that even possible? Can the dead cry?_

Victor didn't know, and the more he thought, the more he realized he didn't know very much at all. Until a thought of profound clarity came to him.

_Does she deserve less a chance at happiness? No._

With this thought, Victor found the courage to play what lay in his heart. He could love Emily, he did in a different way. In fact, who was to say he even knew what love was at all, but at this moment he wanted her to not feel sad, for her past, for what he'd said, for anything that had happened at all. In a terrifying moment of lucidity, Victor realized that she was waiting for him, all her life, perhaps all her unlife, and he had done nothing so far beyond letting her down.

_I've been perfectly ghastly._

So Victor found it in himself to play what he felt. For her to forgive him, for her to just accept him anyway, past mistakes and all. With confidence he didn't feel, the notes sang out, and Victor dared to look over at her. What he found was Emily, elbow propped up against the keyboard with her chin resting against it, doing her best to ignore his attempt to reach out.

Undaunted, Victor continued, looking down and focusing on the keys. _Not just forgiveness._ He didn't just want forgiveness. He wanted…he wanted…_What do I want?_ The answer came to him through the music. He wanted her to be able to comfort him, for her to take his arms and wrap them around her when she felt cold, to lay together and look up at the moon together, to dance, to sing, to play, to laugh, to **be** **together**. His attention so focused on what he wanted to convey, the second sound beneath his own notes almost threw him for a loop. She was playing! She was playing with him!

In Emily's song she reciprocated, and explained to him what she wanted. She wanted faith, wanted him to care, to talk, to open up, to show her the stars, to give her back her happiness that had been stolen. She wanted him, not just anyone else, him, as her husband, a real husband. With a look over her shoulder, and a toss of her blue tresses she arched an eyebrow at him, daring him.

_I can be those things._

With an answering trill, Victor grinned and played on. Together they played a glorious duet, no words could fit the accord they'd come to, no description of the music together. Instead they were lost in the love over music. He'd make a mistake, and she would cover, she would lay the lower part of a chord in and wait for him to catch up, together they made harmony.

There was a gentle crack sound, and as they both halted slightly, faltering, Emily's left hand popped off at the wrist, continuing to dance and revel in the musical moment. It went up in scale, dancing over octaves until it reached Victor's section of keyboard, hopping up his arm and continuing to press so his fingers continued the notes. It touched on his shoulders, crossing the top of his back and onto the other side, until finally the music finished its ringing tones. Clutching the hand softly, Victor noted that it wasn't nearly as morbid or disgusting as he'd thought; rather it was just a hand, almost like any other…if a bit harder and thinner than most.

Emily couldn't hold in her happiness at him being alright with touching her skeleton hand, and let out a little titter, "Pardon my enthusiasm." She was shocked all the more when Victor reached over and took her left arm gently, pressing the hand back in its joint.

"I like your enthusiasm." Victor couldn't help but whisper the words, afraid to break the spell their piano playing had left in the air. His right hand didn't want to break the connection either, and he held onto her hand. Looking at her, Victor suddenly felt the world slow down, and he got a good look at her. Blue and raven tresses cascading around a beautiful and expressive face, eyes that drank deeply of him, an almost pouting mouth and dancer's figure, but more than that, she understood him, he saw that clearly for the first time.

For the first time, he saw her not as a corpse bride, but as a woman, Emily.

_I could love her. Maybe…maybe I do love her._

- - - -

Author's notes: I thought I left this fairly open, although I make no show of hiding that I much rather favor the Emily/Victor coupling in the movie. Apologies should go to FairyMei, who I used as an accurate source material for the quotations, and for rewriting this scene largely as I saw fit. Of all the scenes in the movie, there are only two that speak to me distinctly of Victor's perceived love of Emily over Victoria, they are…of course this one, and after it when Emily discovers the fine print of their marriage. I like to look at this scene as the turning point of Victor's character, from being selfish to selfless, and that's a heroic quality we can all strive to emulate.

My thanks to you readers for taking the time to indulge my writing meanderings. I hope you enjoyed it.


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